Rocket Girl was a very interested if cliched graphic novel

The NYTPD sent her to 1986 New York City to investigate the Quintum Mechanics megacorporation for Crimes Against Time. Piecing together the clues, Dayoung Johansson discovers the “Future” she calls home–a high-tech alternate reality version of 2013–shouldn’t exist at all!

review :

I picked this volume up from the library because the concept seemed pretty interesting. Even though it’s based on a few science fiction tropes (traveling back in time to save the future, corrupt government, companies taking over seemingly the entire future) there were some interesting and unique concepts in here.

Rocket Girl, aka DaYoung Johansson, is sent back to 1986. Nevermind the amount of technological advances that would have to happen between then and 2013 to not only make this tech but DaYoung’s future possible, it’s interesting. She’s a police officer? For some reason the NYPD decided that teenagers are more trustworthy (a terrible idea, really) and that they should really run the show when it comes to cops. Once you’re 20, you bounce out of the New York Teen Police Department and basically aim for a job in private security. Nothing bad could come of that, right?

It was cool to have the comic set in the 1980s. The hair, the fashion, the atmosphere of NYC. It’s all seen sort of from DaYoung’s perspective, as she zips around the city in her jetpack. The only thing is, for all of the metal commentary done by her (and there’s TONS of interior monologue) she never really comments on the past other than to go on about how there’s no wonder it’s a terrible place because all of the cops are old. It would have been fun to see her showing Annie (a scientist who houses her after DaYoung arrives in the past) future tech, or commenting on Annie’s wardrobe, or . . her reaction to any of this, really, because DaYoung had no prep whatsoever for going to the past. And being stuck there where she won’t even blend in.

To expand more on my thoughts about her interior monologues, there was too much of it for how little we get from it. I would need to read each set of pages twice, once for the actual dialogue of the scenes and again for all of the thoughts in her head because she’d only think a word per panel at some points. Bouncing back and forth between her thoughts and the actual action would have been way too confusing and I would have ended up missing a lot. In the end I was still frustrated because it really lifted me out of the story.

I did like that there were some twists that make me feel like these comics will be even better if these ideas are expanded upon in the future. Other people follow DaYoung to the past. DaYoung seems like she’s finally going to try to blend into society, which would be funny and show a lot about her version of 2013. There are a few other things that I’d prefer not to spoil, if you’re interested in reading this collection. Overall, there’s so much potential. It’s just off to a little bit of a rocky start.